Chilled to the Bone (6 page)

He sat back thoughtfully.

“So who are you, darling?” he asked himself, looking at the clock and slipping his jacket on. “And who have you upset so badly that they’ve paid that evil bastard Hinrik hard cash to find out who you are?”

G
UNNA LEFT
H
ELGI
and Eiríkur to deal with the staff at Hotel Gullfoss while she went back to her desk at the Hverfisgata police station, where paperwork galore awaited her. A note on her desk asked her to look in on Ívar Laxdal, the senior officer in charge of what was nominally the serious crime unit, except that a general lack of serious crime in Reykjavík had ensured it remained part of the team of detectives working from the cramped office. The unit’s chief inspector, Örlygur Sveinsson, had briefly returned to work to take up the post he’d been given, only to see a return of the long-standing back problem that had already kept him off work for a long time. His three-week stint in charge had been blessed by nothing that
could be classed as the sort of serious crimes the unit had been created to deal with, leaving Gunna and the others to handle the usual break-ins, “borrowed” cars and stolen mobile phones during a wonderfully peaceful hiatus. Word had already spread that Örlygur’s departure for the couch at home seemed to have coincided with a spate of assaults, an attempted murder and a rape case that Gunna privately doubted would ever come to court.

She looked at the screenful of emails that needed to be dealt with, deleted half of them unread and immediately felt better before looking at Ívar Laxdal’s note, noticing that it had been written by the man himself, rather than a phone message relayed through someone else. She wondered if he was still at work, looked at the clock and decided to see if he could be found in person instead of calling his office.

“Ah, Gunnhildur,” Ívar Laxdal’s voice boomed behind her as she neared the canteen. “Coffee?”

His uncanny capacity to appear when needed, or when his presence was likely to be most awkward, never failed to unnerve his officers, although Gunna was starting to get used to it.

They had missed lunch by several hours and the canteen tables were being wiped down. Ívar Laxdal brought two cups of strong coffee and Gunna noticed her stomach complain. She felt the need for something solid and ruthlessly banished the thought.

“What happened at Hotel Gullfoss? Anything we need to worry about?”

“I don’t think so. Looks like one of those jobs that’s straightforward but takes some time. Helgi’s on top of it at the moment. Why? Something you have in mind?”

“Just the usual,” Ívar Laxdal said, a thumb rasping against the bristles under his chin as he scratched it while flipping through a list that Gunna could see had been written with an
old-fashioned fountain pen on plain paper, rather than a computer printout. “We have a spate of break-ins in the western end of town. It looks like someone is targeting houses while the occupants are at work; every one has been carried out between two and four in the afternoon as far as the statements can tell us. There have been a dozen so far and it’s getting serious.”

“Is that one for me?”

“I think so. Read through the reports and let me know where you want to take it. Then we have a child abuse case, a boy of twelve who appears to have been not so much abused as ignored. He’s been throwing out all kinds of stories after he was caught shoplifting for the twentieth time and social services want it investigated,” he said with the bland air of a man reading a shopping list. “Then there are the usual stolen cars, one alleged rape and a mugging outside a nightclub on Friday night.” He looked up suddenly with the innocent smile that Gunna knew to be wary of.

“Go on.”

“I had a call from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he said. “Believe it or not, we have an African desk at the ministry and it seems that a departmental secretary has lost a computer they would rather like back. It’s a MacBook, apparently, quite an old one.”

Gunna tapped the side of her head in disbelief. “You are joking, aren’t you? They want us to find a lost laptop?”

Ívar Laxdal looked impassive and broke into a smile as he handed the list over to her. “Gunnhildur, between ourselves, I don’t care one way or the other. The ministry won’t tell me much except that they lost a laptop and they want it back.”

“If they want it back that badly, their best bet would be to go through the small ads until they find whoever’s selling it.”

“I know. All I want to be able to do is tell them that I’ve assigned it to someone. Go through the motions, would you? Talk to someone there and pretend that there’s a hope in hell
of finding their laptop. I’m a lot more interested in this fatality at Hotel Gullfoss. Tell me more, would you?”

“It looks like an old chap had booked himself a kinky escort and his blood pressure couldn’t cope with the excitement. Name of Jóhannes Karlsson, in his mid-sixties and no featherweight.”

“The shipowner?” Ívar Laxdal asked, an eyebrow turning into a questioning inverted V.

“No idea. Helgi’s looking into his background and trying to get hold of the man’s wife.”

Ívar Laxdal nodded sagely. “Tread carefully. If it’s him, then expect a few ructions. It’s a prominent family, well connected. Just make sure all the boxes are ticked.”

“You mean they donate heaps of money to one or other of the political parties?”

“Probably. They’re the kind of people who will have influential friends, so be prepared. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said, depositing a file on the table. “This gentleman was released from prison in Lithuania and shipped home via Denmark. He arrived just before Christmas and the airport police had a chat with him. Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson. Remember him?”

Gunna shook her head, trawling her memory for the tongue-twisting name.

“Better known as Bigfoot, maybe?” Ívar Laxdal prompted.

“Ah, yes. How could I forget him? Used to do a bit of debt collecting, didn’t he? Haven’t heard him mentioned for years.”

“He upset someone in Lithuania eight or nine years ago and ended up serving his sentence without a single day’s remission for good behaviour, or so I’m told. Anyway, he’s back now and I’d like an eye kept on him.”

Gunna frowned. “Has he done anything?”

Ívar Laxdal spread his arms questioningly. “Without a doubt. But are we looking out for anything specific? No. I’d be
surprised if he didn’t do something, though. It’s not as if he’s the type to get a job emptying the bins for Kópavogur council. More than likely some scores will need settling, so it would be no bad thing if he knows a friendly eye is being kept on him, and that others also know we’re watching him.” He stood up. “I’ll leave the file with you and you can have a look through it when you have a chance, Gunnhildur. No pressure.” He smiled. “But if you look back to nineteen ninety-four, I’d be interested to see what your take on that is. It’s also interesting that he didn’t want to be shipped home to sit out his sentence in the four-star hotels we have for prisons here. In fact, he fought
not
to be shipped home. Why, I wonder?”

He poured the last of his bitter coffee down his throat and was gone, leaving Gunna with a file that she knew, with a sinking feeling, was either going to eat up any chance of a lunch break, or at least half the evening.

“
Hæ
, M
UM
.”

“Didn’t expect to see you here, sweetheart,” Gunna said in surprise. “Soffía’s not with you?”

There was something about Gísli’s bearing that instantly set Gunna’s alarm bells ringing. He looked nervous, twisting the keys to his Pajero in his fingers and repeatedly checking his mobile phone.

“Going to sea tomorrow, are you?”

“Postponed. There’s a problem with one of the fuel pumps, so we’re not sailing until the weekend now.”

Gunna reached for the coffee jar.

“Already made some, Mum. It’s in the thermos,” Gísli said quickly.

“What?”

“I made some coffee. I thought you’d be home about now and I wanted a word.”

Gunna sat down at the little breakfast bar that Steini and
Gísli between them had built, and poured herself a mug. “What’s the matter, Gísli?”

“Ach … Nothing … Laufey’s not home is she?”

“No, your sister’s at Sigrún’s and she’s babysitting until about eight. Steini’s doing a job in Akranes today and won’t be back until tonight, so we have the place all to ourselves. Now, what’s the matter? Soffía’s all right, isn’t she?”

She poured coffee into another mug and pushed it toward Gísli.

“Well, yeah. Sort of,” he dithered, and Gunna looked at him with the silent tell-me-more expression she used on suspects but had to remind herself not to use on family.

“It’s like this …” Gísli said, fumbling for words. “Soffía … she’s great and I love her to bits …”

“She’s a lovely girl,” Gunna agreed. Her prospective daughter-in-law had been Gísli’s girlfriend for more than a year, and while Gunna had been concerned they were too young to settle down, she was certain that Soffia, with her quick intelligence, sharp humor and red curls, would calm her son down into a responsible young man. The news of Soffía’s pregnancy had been disturbing to start with, but it seemed that the young couple had everything organized. Gísli would take the winter off from the trawler he had been working on and use the time to study for his mate’s certificates, while Soffía was confident that her teacher training could continue uninterrupted.

Gísli gulped. “It’s like this …” he said while Gunna waited with growing concern.

“Soffía’s chucked you out?”

“No. Nothing like that. Well, not yet, at any rate. Fuck … sorry, mum.”

“Gísli! Calm down, will you? Take a deep breath and start from the beginning.”

Gísli stood up and walked around the kitchen, car keys and
phone rattling in his fingers. “It’s like this. You know when we told you that you were going to be a …”

“A grandmother. Yes, I remember. That sort of thing doesn’t happen every day.”

“Look. You weren’t very pleased, were you? Said we could have waited a year or two.”

“I know. I still think you should both have finished college first. But these things happen, and considering I was sixteen when you came along, I’m in no position to preach.”

“The thing is, Mum,” Gísli continued, pausing again and sitting back down on a stool opposite her. “The thing is that you’re going to be a granny twice over.”

There was a long silence and the clock over the stove ticked to fill it. Even the radio burbling in next door’s garage could be heard.

“Twins?” Gunna asked eventually. “Tell me Soffía’s having twins.”

Gísli shook his head in misery. “You know when we went to Vestureyri for Granny Árnína’s funeral last year and you had to stay behind while I went south and Drífa got a lift with me to Reykjavík?”

“Your cousin Drífa?”

“Well, she’s not really my cousin. She’s uncle Svanur’s stepdaughter.”

Gunna thought back to the tall girl with the midnight hair and black clothes, who seemed to have gone from a gawky high-school adolescent to a stunning young university student in the space of a single summer.

“Soffía’s having a baby in April and Drífa’s having one in …?”

“May.”

Gunna stood up and wondered what she could say that she wouldn’t regret later. She stared out of the window at the grey slush on the road outside and the shadow of the distant mountains with moonlight glinting on their white slopes.

“Gísli …”

He sat with his head in his hands. “I’m really sorry, Mum.”

Gunna reached for the kitchen cupboard and pulled out the bottle of cognac that was kept behind the packets of breakfast cereal.

“I think we both might need one of these,” she decided, putting the bottle in front of Gísli and reaching for two shot glasses from the cupboard under the bar.

“Y
OU COULD HAVE
woken me up this morning,” Agnes complained. Jóel Ingi checked his phone again and set the alarm for six. “What’s the matter with you anyway? You’ve been like a cat on hot bricks the last few days.”

She sat on her side of the bed and hauled her dress over her head, rolling it into a ball, which she threw clumsily toward the washing basket by the bedroom door, where it hit the wall and landed on the floor instead.

“I’m all right. Just tired.”

He sat on the bed and lay back, trailing fingertips down the vertebrae studding Agnes’s back as she unclipped her bra and sent it flying to land next to the dress. More curves than when they’d met all those years ago, but that’s no bad thing, he thought.

“Shall we …?” Jóel Ingi asked invitingly. “It’s not that late yet.”

“A second ago you were tired.” Agnes dropped her nightdress over her head without turning around. “Just get some sleep, will you?”

I
T WAS DARK
, and the damp chill promised a miserable day, although the drizzle that had replaced the last few weeks of sporadic snowfall had started the long process of melting the hardened ice in the street outside Jóel Ingi’s apartment. He swept the car out of the underground garage and into the street, where the tires juddered on the ridges and troughs left in the packed snow. He swore quietly. Agnes had wanted to buy a 4×4, but he’d told her not to be ridiculous. Apart from the rare visit to the tourist attractions of Gullfoss or Thingvellir with visiting foreign friends requiring a fine summer’s day, they never went further than the airport at Keflavík or the new shopping mall at Korputorg, and the grey Audi was more than good enough for that.

“It never snows in Reykjavík, or hadn’t you noticed?” he had asked with a derisory laugh that Agnes hadn’t failed to remind him of once the unseasonal snow began to fall.

He pushed the car cautiously along the city’s main road. He could have walked easily enough, but today he felt like using the car and there was the chance that he might need it later. The roads were quiet, while the car park at the gym was already half full with 4×4s and a handful of cars.

Jóel Ingi ran for a few kilometers, cycled for six and did some bench presses for the sake of his abdominals, which he felt were starting to get a little too soft for comfort. A shower and an hour later, he plunged from the gym back into the
morning darkness, the door swishing shut behind him. As the Audi hummed onto the road and into the wake of a slow-moving truck spreading grit, a tired Renault appeared in the mirror and he wondered if it had followed him from the gym.